


A Deadly Cup of Tea

by bellatwixwestwange



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Attempted Murder, M/M, Murder, Murder Mystery, Poisoning, Swearing, sherlock/watson alternate universe, snupin - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-07 23:45:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11069562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellatwixwestwange/pseuds/bellatwixwestwange
Summary: Remus Lupin, recently unemployed and homeless, agrees to lodge with Severus Snape, who himself is facing financial problems at the hands of a muggle bank to which his late parents had mortgaged their crumbling home at Spinner’s End. The unlikely housemates are then forced to join forces when a wizard hires them to save his wrongly convicted fiancee from a lifelong imprisonment in Azkaban.





	1. The Unwelcome Lodger

Never in his miserable life did Remus Lupin see himself standing on the doorstep of Severus Snape. He drew up his collar against the cold and dirty wind that blew over the dismal street of Spinner’s End. Several broken streetlamps with rickety poles creaked and rocked while some loose shingles on the dilapidated houses rippled in the turbid gust.

Lupin turned dubiously to the rusted bell. Thrice he turned to leave, but each time, to his aggravation, he stomped back to the uninviting door. After vehemently rubbing his unkempt face, he heaved a deep, glum sigh and shifted his battered suitcase from one hand to the other. Finally, he reached out and rang the bell.

An instant later, the door swung open urgently and there stood the man himself in the aperture, decked in his usual attire minus the billowing robe. Severus Snape looked disparagingly at Lupin’s haggard appearance, a bitter smirk curling the ends of his thin, muted lips. “Took you long enough.” said Snape gruffly. Lupin gaped, unsure how to respond. Snape gestured to the sitting room window. “I’ve been watching you through the crack in the curtains. That was quite an entertaining display.”

Lupin avoided those dead black eyes and anxiously licked his lips. Snape was still scrutinizing him, silently reveling in the sordid state of his patched clothes and suitcase. “Judging by your attire, Lupin, I’d say you’re still poorly employed or you fancy dressing up as a street urchin.” he remarked. ‘I have to say you look absolutely picturesque against the sullen backdrop of Cokeworth.”

“It’s good to see you, too, Severus.” Lupin, his nerves bristling up at the insult, simpered. “Did you receive my letter?”

“If I hadn’t I wouldn’t have expected you.”

“Of course,” Lupin soughed. “May I come in?”

With a withering gaze, Snape stepped aside to let the visitor into his crumbling home. The moment he stepped over the threshold, Lupin thought he’d rather stand on the doorstep in the bleak mid-October murk than suffer the stifling air of the dim, sparsely furnished sitting room. Book-laden shelves lined the walls, and Lupin was very much confounded by the apparent lack of doorways. At the left-hand side of the room was a lopsided dining table with three chairs, one of which was stacked high with books, a single gas stove underneath a cupboard, a sink, and a dented refrigerator. This was the kitchen, Lupin figured, and across the room was a short hall that led to a backdoor, which without a doubt opened onto a yard where the outhouse sat.  
Snape had presently settled into a timeworn armchair beside a roaring fire. He sat leaning upon his knobby knees with his pale, long-fingered hands laced together under his chin. Lank hair spilled over one side of his gaunt face, and his dark glittering eyes followed Lupin as he shuffled to the ratty settee. The two ill-looking men sat for a moment in agonizing silence, their sunless faces and weary postures giving the room a stronger air of disillusionment.

Licking his chapped lips, Lupin leaned forward. “Look,” he began, clasping his hands. “Since I see that you’re not inclined to talk. I just want you to know that I’m only here because McGonagall insisted and I don’t want you to think that –”

“Drop the pretense, Lupin.” Snape interrupted. Lupin flinched. “Anyone can tell that you’re a desperate man. You also need not explain yourself since Minerva has conveniently sent me a letter informing me of your … how did she put it? It was … ‘predicament’, I believe, and, if I understand correctly, she has already explained to you what my current financial standing is and without a doubt, judging by the urgency of your note and the suitcase you’ve brought with you, you have come to me to discuss my terms for your ostensible lodgings here at Spinner’s End. So, if I were you, Lupin, I would drop the pretense of unwillingly being here.”

Lupin shrugged his bowed shoulders. “Well, as it appears you know everything.” said he, with a look of resignation. “Pray tell me your terms.”

“I believe Minerva has told you of the impending mortgage deadline that I’m facing. The muggle bank to which my deceased parents pledged the house is intent on claiming the property and its contents unless I pay back the amount by the agreed date. Previously I’ve been able to pay them off with a portion of my salary as a professor at Hogwarts, but now that I don’t work there anymore my meager pension is barely able to meet their demands. So, despite how much it pains me to tell you this, any amount which you will be capable to cough up from what savings you have in exchange for lodging will be much appreciated.”

Lupin nodded dumbly, but he dared to put into words a question that had been eating away at his curiosity the moment he had found out about Snape’s advert through Professor McGonagall. “It rather makes me wonder, Severus,” said Lupin. He noticed that Snape cast him a menacing glance at the mention of his name. “Knowing that you bear no fondness for this place,” He swept a flippant hand at the shelf-lined walls. “Why do you endeavor to save it?”

Snape rolled his eyes and lay back in the armchair. “I endeavor to save it for the same reason you come to me.” Snape snapped. “I have nowhere else to go. So no matter how much I loathe this place, I cannot let it go. There’s no other place where I’d be more welcome, unfortunately.”

“I see.” said Lupin with some asperity. “So, it’s practically an appeal from a desperate man to another.”

“Apparently,” muttered Snape. After fidgeting with his fingers, he added with considerable agitation, “And so, I am willing to overlook any … all differences between the two of us which we have been able to establish in the past … and I will try to … ugh … be pleasant enough a landlord to you during your stay … here … at my house … and ugh …”

While Snape grappled for the right words, a large amused grin had spread across Lupin’s scarred face. “No.” he chipped in.

Snape cocked one of his eyebrows. “No?” he asked.

“No.” repeated Lupin. “No, you will not. I know you won’t, so drop the pretense, Severus.” he added snarkily.

A smirk, the closest Snape could get to a smile, twisted the corner of his lips. Lupin had to admit that he was surprised when he clapped his hands in what seemed like real pleasure. “Excellent!” he cried, his deep, mournful voice making the interjection sound odd. “Then I see no reason for me to be nothing but absolutely frank with you. Here are my terms: Firstly, I am not your housekeeper and I don’t run a bed and breakfast. As long as you stay here you will cook your own meals which you will buy with your own money, make your own bed, and do your own laundry. Second, don’t expect any pleasantries or services from me. I don’t do favors. I don’t do secrets. I’m not your friend. So far as you’re concerned, you’re at my mercy. If I so much as see something that I don’t like at all, I will throw you out. Finally, I require you to turn in your rent by the end of every week. If that troubles you, then feel free to head out the door. In light of all this, do we have an agreement, Lupin?”

Lupin was vehemently rubbing at his face again. The terms, for all he cared, were outrageous, and he thought that heading out the door and sleeping on the curb would be far better than putting up with the old sourpuss, but his pride held him back from getting up and storming off. He feigned geniality and nodded. “Yes.” he told Snape with a wince.

“Great!” cried Snape as he rose from his armchair with a grunt. “Let’s get you settled, then.” He swerved around the settee and pulled at the corner of one of the shelves. Lupin, still seated by the fire, looked round curiously at what the other man was doing. The shelf swung forward on some hidden hinge to reveal a dark gaping orifice. Running his hand over the inner walls, Snape flipped a switch and a sickly yellow electric light bulb flickered over a rickety set of stairs that led up to the second floor.

“After you,” Snape told his guest with an emphatic gesture to the steps.

The worm-eaten wood groaned under the weight of the two men as they ascended. As he stepped on to the landing, Lupin, noticed that there were two rooms. The one to his right was shut, and he guessed it was the master bedroom, where Snape had his quarters. The room to which he was escorted to was considerably smaller. The walls were bare, stained, and peeling. A dilapidated bed with moth-eaten sheets was pushed against the far side of the room. There was a closet, and stagnant rainwater from the leaking gutters pooled within and dripped down from the ceiling. He hurried to the open window to shut out the foul breeze.

“It’s not much,” Snape told Lupin as he knelt on the slightly damp mattress, his hands still clutching the sill. “But I do hope it will suffice.”

He looked back to find Snape standing rigid, sweeping the room with a depreciative glance while his knuckles turned white as he grasped the half-open door.

“This used to be your room.” Lupin figured.

“Yes, it was.” he retorted. He cleared his throat and turned to go. “I’ll be downstairs if you need anything.”

Lupin watched as he disappeared down the steps. He heard the shelf creak on its in hinge as it was opened and again as it was replaced. Sighing, he threw himself unto the mattress and fell into a deep sleep. When he awoke the night was already old. Realizing that he had left his suitcase by the door, he tiptoed back to the sitting room. Snape had resumed his silent vigil by the fire and seemed to take no notice of Lupin as he hefted his suitcase toward the open shelf. “Listen, Severus,” said Lupin, disrupting Snape’s grave reverie. “You don’t have to worry about being disturbed. I’ll be away most days looking for –”

“A job?” Severus offered tartly.

Lupin pursed his lips and nodded resentfully. “Yes. That”

“Well, good luck with that.”

“Also, I’m in dire straits so I can only give you about five sickles a week.”

“Something’s better than nothing.”

“Good night, Severus.”

Snape gave no reply. He turned his face to the direction of the fire and stretched his long spindly legs on the bare hardwood floor, any thought of sleep evidently far from his mind.


	2. The Remarkable Letter

 True to his word, Lupin spent most of the following weeks hunting for job adverts in the Daily Prophet. Unfortunately, he was deemed unqualified for any of the jobs he applied for. His track record didn’t really put his employers in his favor. Day by day he grew more destitute and he knew that if he didn’t get employed soon he wouldn’t be able to pay his promised lodging fee. Meanwhile, Snape was facing greater problems, the deadline was speedily approaching and he obviously didn’t have enough money to pay back the mortgage. Lupin had more to do with the latter than anyone. 

Snape was becoming more intolerable and spent longer hours of introspection by the fire. Other times, he’d be in his room brewing concoctions for days on end. Emaciated, dour, and ill-tempered, he set to work one afternoon in the kitchen nook to fix lunch for himself. Lupin, home from one of his business excursions with a loaf of bread and eggs in a paper bag, made his way to the lopsided dining table, where Snape was busy cutting up a large carrot. He sought out a place to put his bag on the crowded tabletop. Frustrated by the amount of space Snape was taking up, he put a firm hand on a head of lettuce, meaning to push it aside to make room for his goods.

“Don’t you _dare_ move that lettuce.” Snape snarled.

“Well, where do you want me to put my bag?” cried Lupin querulously.

“Anywhere but there!”

“Merlin’s beard.” Lupin muttered and chucked the bag onto one of the chairs. He winced at the minced vegetables, the bowl of vigorously mixed mustard colored sauce, and the irate look on Snape’s face. “Are you putting together a garden salad?”

“I don’t eat meat.” explained Snape.

“Ah! So that’s why you’re so pale.” heckled Lupin. “You don’t have enough protein.” Snape shot him an acrid look. He grabbed a frying pan from the overhead cupboard, but before he could place it on the stove Snape had swiped it out of his grasp. “Severus,” he said through gnashed teeth. “I need that to toast my bread.”

Snape scoffed, throwing a handful of cherry tomatoes into the pan. “There’s a toaster right over there.” He indicated a tarnished steel toaster perched on top of the dented refrigerator. Lupin pursed his lips and scratched his pate in annoyance.

“And when was the last time that toaster was used?” he snapped. “The eighteenth century?”

Snape shrugged blithely. “Do you expect me to fry my eggs with that toaster as well?” asked Lupin.

“Don’t make me solve your problems, Lupin.” said Snape as he rinsed the head of lettuce in the sink. Lupin rummaged in the overhead cupboard. He took out a sizeable saucepan and smiled triumphantly. “This should do the trick!” he said, laughing. “Poached eggs don’t seem too bad, eh?”

He placed the saucepan on the stove with a clatter. He had hardly reached for his bag of scanty groceries when Snape had snatched the saucepan and dumped his ripped lettuce leaves in it. There was a pause before Lupin broke out in fury. “Are you out of your mind?!” he screamed at his lessor.

“Not just yet.” Severus said coolly. “Why are you so tense, Lupin?”

Lupin was still screaming. “Why are you behaving like a prat? Why, for the love of Merlin, won’t you let me use the kitchenware?!”

“Because I enjoy being a thorn in your mangy hide, that’s why.” Severus replied in stentorian tones.

“Oh, so I suppose I’m not allowed to use the bedeviled stove as well, eh?!” he cried with a grand gesture to the kitchen appliance in question.

Snape emphatically nodded his head once. Defeated, Lupin turned away, suppressed a screech, and ruffled his hair. Snape watched him in utter amusement a few minutes later peering into a small kettle he had hung over the fire. When the kettle had whistled, he sat on the settee shelling two hardboiled eggs on his lap.

“Here,” Lupin looked up to see Snape presenting him with a saltshaker. “It’ll taste better.”

Lupin was torn between throwing it at his greasy head and pounding his face in with it. He decided to choose a more civil response and gingerly accepted the saltshaker. He took a large bite from one of the eggs, which he had daubed in salt. Snape had bidden him “bon appétit” while picking at his salad. Fuming, Lupin stuffed what remained of the egg into his mouth and licked the rock salt off his palm. He could swear he heard Snape snickering to himself in the corner.

At around six o’clock on the same day, the two men sat by themselves; Snape in his armchair, flipping through a colossal book on his knee, and Lupin at the uneven table, riffling through the Daily Prophet adverts. “Give it up, Lupin.” Snape said from across the room, scribbling something on a scrap of parchment. “Even if you did find a job you wouldn’t be able to hold it.”

“I appreciate your concern, Severus.” replied Lupin, who was clearly still stewing about the skirmish that happened earlier at lunch.

Spotting a want ad for a clerk at Flourish and Blotts, Lupin hurriedly reached for a quill and some parchment. In his bustle, he accidentally knocked over his inkwell and caused a stream of ink to blot out the contact details he needed to make an application letter.  With a helpless groan, he thrust his head into the clutter of papers and crumpled them in his fists.

Snape scoffed at the sight of him. “You look incredibly pathetic.”

“Thank you, Severus!” Lupin snapped, rising from the paper mound. “Sometimes I wonder how far I could go without your support.”

“Well, you really aren’t that difficult to bolster, Lupin.”

“Ah, look! The mail’s here!” cried Lupin, desperate to change the subject. A tawny owl buffeted the window with its wings, its beak clamped tightly on a single envelope. 

“Odd. I don’t usually get mail.” Snape remarked. “Then again, it might be a reply to one of your application letters.” he added hotly.

Lupin hastily opened the window and plucked the letter out of the bird’s possession. Having done its purpose, the owl fluttered off into the obscure night sky. An algid mist hung thickly over the somber neighborhood, and a shiver ran down Snape’s spine as the coiling spectral tendrils slithered into the room.

“Do you intend to catch a cold, Lupin? Shut the window, if you please.” Snape ordered from behind his book. Turning over the letter in his hand, Lupin dejectedly dragged the window down and rearranged the thick, dusty curtains. “It’s for you.” he said, slipping it under Snape’s hooked nose.

“Me?” asked Snape incredulously.

“Professor S. Snape, it says. 10 Spinner’s End, Cokeworth.”

The letter was enclosed in a thick cream parchment envelope. It was addressed in expensive mauve ink by a man with a freshly sharpened quill. Although the sender was evidently distressed, he had managed to keep his penmanship readable. The purple seal on the flap bore a coat of arms adorned with a large “S”.  Snape broke this seal and folded out the letter. He sat for some time reading and rereading in silence, his brows knitted together in concentration.

“Are you familiar with the name Shafiq, Lupin?” he asked eventually.

Lupin, who sat occupied at the settee, polishing his beat-up oxfords, combed his fairly reliable memory for a recollection of the name. “A pure-blood family name, isn’t it? Cantankerus Nott listed the family as one of the Sacred 28 when the bill came out in the 1930s.” he replied. “Why?”

“A Mr. Alcott Shafiq is asking for an audience tomorrow at ten.”

“Why? What for?”

Snape passed him the letter and lay back in the armchair.

_Dear Professor Snape,_ [it read]

_My name is Alcott Shafiq. I work for the Ministry of Magic as an auror. My family has recently been put under a great deal of grief by the passing of my grandfather, Haywood Shafiq. He was a good man, my grandfather, and despite his age he was of good health and I can’t help but consider his sudden death suspicious. Furthermore, my fiancée, Felicity Staunton, has been charged with his apparent murder. She insists of her innocence and I am duly prepared to take her word for it. As I am an officer involved, I am not at liberty to investigate my fiancée’s case, but I will spare no expense to prove her innocence. May I then consult you regarding the matter tomorrow at ten o’clock sharp at your own quarters?_

_Respectfully yours,_

_Alcott Shafiq_

“Well, someone’s persistent.” Lupin remarked in good-humor as he handed back the letter to Snape. “It seems as though he’s ready to pay you through the nose to save his fiancée.”

“I don’t even know anything about this Shafiq business.” grumbled Snape. “Besides, what does he want me to do?”

“Judging by his choice of words, I say he wants you to prove Ms. Staunton’s innocence.”

Snape gave a terrible scoff. “Pure-bloods,” he mused. “Those pretentious pricks are all the same, mind you. They all think money will solve everything.”

Lupin cast him a sly sideways glance. “Well, come to think of it…” said he wryly.

“Well, in your case –”

“ _My_ case?”

There was that terrible scoff again. “ _Our_ case, then.” retorted Snape with a roll of his beady eyes. He looked over to heap of crumpled newspapers on the dining table and nudged Lupin sharply on the shin. “Fetch me the obituaries.” he commanded, and Lupin, evidently losing all respect for himself, got up and dug for the papers.

“Haywood Shafiq, 89, of Devonshire” Snape read. “Was found dead in his bedchamber the morning prior and was likely murdered by his own grandson’s fiancée – my, my, they do seem absolutely certain, whoever wrote this surely had intimate relations with the man – being the second son of the illustrious Tyrell Shafiq, Mr. Shafiq had no need for any formal employment and mainly occupied himself with cultivating and studying various herbs, blooms, and roots. He is survived by his loving wife, Olivia Shafiq nee Fawley and his devoted grandson, Alcott.”

“I found an article about the matter.” declared Lupin, straightening the crumpled broadsheet. “It says here that the wife suspects that Ms. Felicity Staunton, a muggle-born witch of 40 years, murdered her husband with an unknown and possibly very dangerous curse or jinx. Ms. Staunton has been of course taken under custody in Azkaban Prison and awaits trial. She has refused to plead her guilt and insists that she had only been drinking tea with the deceased man the day before his death.”

Snape had resumed his pose of introspection – leaning upon his knees, his jaw upon his sveltely interlaced hands. The glow of the hearth had cast his sinister shadow on the floor, and for a while Lupin was afraid to speak in the face of his majesty. “Severus?” he squeaked.

“Hmm?”

“What do you think?”

“I think I’ll have dinner.”  he said and got up from the armchair.  

 


	3. The Persistent Client

Lupin swept his jacket with a tufted brush he had brought with him to Spinner’s End. He had decided to personally drop by at Flourish and Blotts to inquire about their clerk want ad, and had donned on his best clothes, or, at most, the ones that weren’t too frayed and didn’t have too much patchwork. Creeping down the staircase, he heard the muffled clinking of flasks and the heavy clunk of a stirring rod against a cauldron coming from Snape’s bedroom. The door was barred, and without a doubt it would remain so until the afternoon.

Snape had a habit of shutting himself up from dusk to dawn, refusing food and drink, completely absorbed in his potion-making. If he wasn’t in his room he would be in his threadbare armchair, snoozing or reading, having no care for the outside world whatsoever. Not that he was the kind of person you would notice if you walked past him in the street. Snape had a way of blending, of melting into the shadows. A skill and a defense mechanism he had learned to develop over the years. It was a shame that those who hunted him relied not only on their eyes and that they came to him not only in flesh, and although Snape remained safe, or thought he did, wrapped in shadow, their memories followed him there and nestled next to him. He was not one to run from ghosts or their grudges, and so he looked them in the face, even though it hurt, and learned to live with them. Sometimes, he wondered if he wasn’t just a shadow himself.

The time was half-past nine, Lupin had just finished tidying up the table where he had eaten a quick breakfast, and was heading out the door when he found a large, beefy man, dark-skinned and brown-eyed, standing at the doorstep. “Can I help you, sir?” he asked, eyeing the gleaming metal auror badge strapped to the man’s belt.

“I’ve asked for an audience with Professor Severus Snape.” said the man urgently. He took out a card from the breast pocket of his tan leather robes and handed it to Lupin.

On it was printed the name ALCOTT SHAFIQ and beneath it AUROR. The unmistakable signet of the Ministry of Magic’s Auror Office authenticated his credentials.

“Yes, he’s in his room.” replied Lupin.

“Good.” Alcott Shafiq, a man who was clearly used to getting his way, pushed past him and propped himself on the settee. “When will he be ready to see me?” he asked pompously.

“I’ll get him.” said Lupin. He swung open the shelf and clambered up the steps, leaving the impatient man to stare at the clever contrivance in awe. Lupin knocked purposefully at the master bedroom door. “Severus?” he called. “Severus, your man is here to see you.” A beat. “Severus?”

Lupin knocked a little louder. “Severus, I have some personal errand to run and I can’t afford to be stalled. Severus?”

“Is he in there or not?” asked Alcott Shafiq irritably as he looked round the open shelf.

“ _Yes!_ ” Lupin called back in exasperation. “He’s in there, alright. He’s just being _difficult_.” He hammered his fist against the door. “Severus! Come out this instant!”

Promptly, the door opened a crack, just enough for Lupin to see Snape’s nose, lips, and one bloodshot eye. “Good morning, Lupin. Is there a matter you want to take up?” said Snape.

“No, but the man downstairs has.” Lupin slipped the card through the crack.

Snape crumpled it in his stained hands and stuck it into the pocket of his tartan dressing robe, a Christmas gift from Minerva he was quite fond of. “Yes, I saw him come down the street as I was standing by the window. He’s quite early, isn’t he? What’s the time?”

“A little past 9:30, and you better come down, because he seems absolutely resolved to see you.”

Snape sighed. “Actually, I was planning to hole up here, have you entertain him for a bit, let him get fed up with my insolence, and watch him storm off.” he explained.

Lupin chuckled. “I hate to be a disappointment, Severus, but I can’t participate in your clever little plan. I’m on my way to Diagon Alley and it’s important that I get there at once.”

“Is that so, Lupin?”

Just then, Alcott Shafiq’s towering form loomed over Lupin, who was himself an impressive six feet and two inches tall. He glowered at the slight, sickly, sleep deprived younger wizard and his shabby scar-faced companion. He addressed Snape with a hard reproof, “When I wrote the letter I sent you yesterday, I was quite convinced that it would convey the urgency of my situation, but seeing that you haven’t even made the effort to dress yourself I can tell that it was inadequate. To be honest, I was expecting some decorum in your part.”

A hostile fire that had sparked at the outsider’s words made Snape’s bloodshot eyes look terrifying.  He drew himself up to his full height, which was somewhat notable though mostly hidden by his slouch. He inched his face toward the imposing auror until their noses were a hair’s breadth from each other.

“It may have escaped your notice, Mr. Shafiq, but I would like you to know that I concern myself with other, more imperative matters – matters of life and death, if you will prefer to dub them so, to which your own problems may seem trivial. I will not allow you to barge into my home and intrude upon my conversation with Mr. Lupin only to hector me. As a suppliant, you are in no position to act like an omnipotent autocrat.” said he in barely suppressed rage. “Now, if you would be so kind to hold your tongue and step down the landing, for I fear it would give under the weight of the three of us, I will be with you shortly.”

He turned on his heel and shut the door in their faces. He came down after a while, still dressed in his slate gray pajamas and robe, perhaps to spite his guest, and made tea for himself. Lupin learned that he enchanted his tea to look black, but in fact could not have it without sugar and cream. Well, Lupin had said to himself, he had to keep a reputation anyway.

“Maybe we should just go over the facts first. You see –”

Snape raised his hand for silence. Lupin choked on his tea. Alcott Shafiq looked ruffled and jutted out his chin in defiance. Still, he didn’t say a word. If Snape and McGonagall had something in common, it was the ability to keep an entire room quiet with their presence. McGonagall was tall, emotionally impenetrable, and dignified like the image of a lord hewn in stone. She left you astonished. It was a different case with Snape. If you found yourselves in the same room, you were the poor mouse and he the cunning snake, deadly and venomous, poised to strike. He’d leave you gasping while you tried in vain to foretell where and when he would strike. So it was that the proud Alcott Shafiq felt his heart pounding against his chest as he found himself at the mercy and scrutiny of the infamous two-faced hero of both Wizarding Wars.

“You have doubts about your grandfather’s death.” said Snape at last. “Not only do you have doubts, but you think that his death bears certain similarities with the deaths of your other, much older relatives. Am I correct?”

Alcott had started. “H-how do you know?” he stammered.

Snape was pleased of himself, and it could be seen quite plainly in his smug smirk. “Since I have been acquainted with him in the past, I’m sure Remus Lupin will be able to guarantee you of my skill in Legilimency.”

“And that means?”

“He can read minds.” explained Lupin as he gulped down what was left of his tea. “That’s the gist of it. Not many wizards and witches can do it.”

“I see.” said Alcott slowly.

“It’s no simple feat, Mr. Shafiq. In fact, the only other wizard known to have possessed such a power was Voldemort himself.”

“Severus, I believe that the mention of that name was unnecessary.” said Lupin.

Snape ignored the comment. “They all died suddenly, didn’t they, Mr. Shafiq?” he asked the auror, who nodded his head. “And all were vigorous despite their age, weren’t they?”  The auror nodded again. “Pray tell me more about them.”

“My great-grandfather, that is Tyrell Shafiq, had three sons: Claiborne, my recently deceased grandfather, Haywood, and the late Rudyard. Some three years ago, Claiborne’s lifeless body was found in the bath. He appeared to have died of cardiac arrest, undoubtedly caused by complications of old age, as the healers said. A few days later, his wife, Demelza, passed away in her bed. Her muscles and face frozen in a similar spasm like that Claiborne had when he was found, because of this similarity they ruled out her death as a cause of grief and old age. The alibis were reasonable, as you can see, but I began to grow suspicious when their daughter, my aunt, Claudia, and their granddaughter, my only cousin, Loretta died one after the other under the same circumstances.”

“And how old were they?”

“Aunt Claudia was in her early sixties and Loretta was forty-three. They had no illnesses which we were aware of.”

Lupin stood mesmerized by the interview. Snape sat with a far-off expression on his austere face, but he listened with the attention of a schoolboy in his favorite class. “And what was the medical explanation to their unfortunate passing?” he asked.

“The healers figured that they died of cardiac arrest, as it was the only reasonable explanation.” said Alcott. “They supposed that we might have an unusual hereditary illness that strikes at the moment we least expect.”

“I presume that Mr. Haywood Shafiq was found the same way? With a rigid expression and a stiff carcass?”

“Yes.”

“And who was he with before he died?”

“I was away at work at the time, but I’ve been informed by Fibble, that is the family house elf, that my grandfather had tea with Felicity in the drawing room before he retired to bed.”

“Was there anyone else in the house aside from the house elf? _Lupin!_ ”

Lupin dropped the cup and saucer in his surprise. He dropped to his knees. “Y-yes?” he spluttered, picking up the shards of the broken china.

“Make yourself useful and take notes!” barked Snape.

He scrambled for quill and parchment. Snape turned to Alcott. “I didn’t quite hear your reply, Mr. Shafiq.”

“No one else was there, but my grandmother, Olivia, had been in attendance before she left to visit some relations.”

“So it was that Ms. Staunton was blamed.” Snape concluded. “I understand that they suspect she used a curse or jinx to do the deed. Do they know what curse or jinx specifically?”

“Yes. They say she might have invented one of her own.”

“Was she skilled in non-verbal magic, jinxes, hexes, curses, and the like?”

Alcott sifted through his muddled memory. “She was quite good at Charms in our time at Hogwarts.”

“Did she ever dabble with the Dark Arts?”

“No! _Never!_ ”

“Lupin?”

“Yes, I took note of it.” snapped Lupin. He had broken the nibs of two quills as he tried to scribble all the information that had passed between the two men and had resolved to use a blunt pencil.

 “Does Ms. Staunton live with you and your family in Devon?”

“Yes, she does. She moved in after I asked her hand in marriage.”

“How long have you been engaged?”

“A year.”

“Lupin?”

“You’re making me tense.”

Snape’s deadpan eyes shifted all of a sudden. The cunning and misanthropic twinkle returned in their depths. “Now, Mr. Shafiq,” he said, assuming his pose of introspection. “What exactly do you want me to do?”

Alcott’s thick black brows furrowed. “Well, I think that I had established that in my letter.” said he in a dodgy tone. “What was all the cross-examination for?”

“You can’t blame a man for being interested can you?” said Snape dryly.

The great auror sprang to his feat, and roared like a raging bull. “See here, sir! I am in no gaming mood! My fiancée’s life is at stake. Azkaban will break her!”

“If you’re so keen on proving her innocence and convinced that the whole matter is absurd, why do you not present your views to the Head of Magical Law Enforcement?”

“She has uttered no word in her shock and the aurors have taken it as a sign of a guilty conscience, but nonetheless I am convinced of her blamelessness. My Felicity would never hurt a fly.” Alcott said with conviction.

Snape’s questions were relentless. “Why, then, do you present the matter to me?”

“Because I’ve heard tell of your greatness, Severus Snape. You’re sharp as a tack and clever as a fox, sir. There’s no one in the world who can get to the bottom of this but you.” said Alcott. “Consider it, sir. What's more, I will be willing to give you and your companion,” he looked pleadingly at Lupin. “If he aids you in clearing my Felicity’s name, 30,000 galleons in return.” 

There was an interminable silence as Snape took in Alcott’s astonishing offer. Before long, he cleared his throat and licked his lips. “Lupin!” he yelled, his voice slightly breaking. “A word, please?” He scuttled around the settee and opened the shelf. Lupin upset the lopsided dining table on his way, his notes and pencil fell to the rotting floorboards. Snape firmly replaced the shelf and grabbed Lupin by the coat lapels. “Can you believe this peacock? 30, 000 galleons he says.” hissed Snape.

“Well, he does come from an affluent family, Severus.”  

“We should take the offer.”

“I’m not sure we’re qualified to investigate a murder, Severus.”

Snape shrugged his shoulders. “Well, at least one of us is.”

“Severus,”

“Lupin, if we split that money, it will pay off the mortgage and give you enough money to pack up and go.” Snape hissed.

“Since when have you been concerned for my sake?”

“What makes you think you’re part of my plans?” asked Snape. “With the house in my legal possession and you on the curb, who do you think benefits most?”

“You, without a doubt.”

“Exactly. So, what say you?”

Lupin couldn’t avoid his piercing black eyes, and 15, 000 galleons was not at all an easy sum to come by. He heaved a sigh from the very bottom of his chest and looked gravely at Severus. “Just promise me that you know what you’re doing.” he menaced.


	4. The Bereaved Woman

“What are these?” Lupin asked Snape the next morning.

He held up a pair of tan leather robes he found hanging over the back of the settee. They had high collars, tight waists, coattails that hung at the calves, and double breasted fronts studded with gleaming gold buttons, on the faces of which were embossed the signet of the Ministry of Magic. Snape was tucking his wand into his shirt sleeve. “What do you think they are?” he asked Lupin.

“Auror robes?”

“Correct.” he said as he took one of the robes and slipped it over his shoulders. He buttoned it with dexterous fingers and turned the collar up. “Really, Lupin, you’re a smart man. Why do you fancy playing dumb all the time?”

“I meant to ask what they were for.”

“Put the other one on.” instructed Snape as he reached behind his head and tied his hair in a loose ponytail. Lupin stared, thinking how Snape looked noteworthy in a different color and with his hair pulled back. This change in appearance didn’t make him less intimidating, since now you could get a bold look at his sharp and unfriendly features, but it was a change Lupin wasn’t at all expecting. His graceless posture and weak limbs were partly masked by the dignified and somber overcoat usually associated with the selfless protectors of the Wizarding World, a title that, ironically, Severus Snape was qualified to hold.

“Why?”

“We’re going to drop by the Shafiq Estate and interview the other individuals who were with the deceased man before he was found. I figured they wouldn’t be too reticent in the company of two aurors.”

Lupin’s brows furrowed. “So, we’re _posing_ as aurors.” he figured.

Snape looked at him as if he was growing a second head. “ _Yes_?” he replied, a tad bit confused. “Is there a problem?”

“Oh no, not at all! Not at all! Although, frankly, I was just wondering, Severus, whether you realize that what you have in mind is practically _illegal_.”

Snape rolled his eyes. “Well, I promised Alcott Shafiq that I will look into the business, _not_ to prove Ms. Staunton’s innocence, mind you, but to find out the truth. In order to do so I have to have my own way, make use of my own methods to gather data. This ingenuous plan, Lupin, which you unimaginatively generalize as falsification of identity, is a vital part of this method. If we do not apply said plan, the chances of gathering reliable information will without a doubt diminish. Just consider, Lupin, if two absolute strangers were to drop by at a grieving family’s home and ask questions about a very personal matter, do you think said family would be willing to give them the answers they seek? Don’t you suppose that they would rather readily put their confidence in men in uniforms, whose business it is to delve into the particulars of the unfortunate incident?”

Lupin shook his head throughout this little speech. He pinched the top of his nose and sat down heavily on the settee. “I should have left yesterday when I had the chance.” he moaned.  

“Well, why didn’t you?” asked Snape venomously. “If I recall correctly, you had a very ‘ _important personal errand to run_ ’.”

“If you must know the truth, I was afraid you would upset the man with your veritable pompousness and accordingly get beaten within an inch of your life.”

Snape made out as if he was touched. “Aren’t you just the biggest sweetheart? Is that why you were so popular among your friends?”

“Oh, will you stop?” Lupin barked.

“It doesn’t matter. You can stay here if you want to. Do what you fancy. Rifle through the Daily Prophet for job advertisements, boil eggs in a kettle, hang yourself over the sitting room – _I don’t care_.” Snape marched toward the front door. He dallied for a moment as he was heading out. “I don’t suppose you’d mind if I take your share of the payment, do you? After all, since you’ve resolved to take no part in this task, I suppose –”

Lupin sprang to his feet. “ _ALRIGHT!_ ” he snapped. “I’m coming.”

The look on Snape’s face was nothing short of smug. “Attaboy, Lupin.” he said and ventured to pat him on the head. Lupin sharply flicked his hand aside and grounded his jaws together. “Admit it, Lupin. You want the money just as much as I do.”

“If it means I can finally do without your generosity and hospitality, I will move heaven and earth, and if I can’t, you can be damn sure I’ll raise hell.”

The two disappeared as they were strolling up the street. Lupin was never fond of apparition, he had always preferred to travel by the floo network, but, as Snape pointed out, it was pointless to do so from Spinner’s End as the fireplace was too small to accommodate either of them. They found themselves a quarter of a mile from the Shafiq Estate, a rambling mansion of gray stone surrounded by overgrown gardens and untamable country fields. Lupin reckoned it must have seen better days, for the majesty of the turrets and gables were unmistakable against the marks of decay and neglect. In the glow of the bright forenoon sun, it was a sinister monument to behold. It was not difficult to imagine it as a place of anguish and death, for in truth, it had been plagued by these for nigh four years.

The unlikely pair traversed the dusty dirt road. Lupin quickly put on the tan robes over his shabby gray cardigan as they approached the gates. With a wave from Snape’s wand, the gate dematerialized and they easily passed through.

“Really, Severus,” said Lupin, suddenly feeling a small upset churning in his empty stomach. “I don’t think we should do this. Why can’t we tell them the truth? Or couldn’t we use some polyjuice to at least make our act a little more convincing?”

Snape trotted joyfully up the porch steps like a little boy. He looked back to Lupin, whipping aside his soot-black ponytail. “Yes, and be a month late on the investigation.” said he haughtily. “Now, Lupin, just because I’m a potioneer, it doesn’t mean that I can make these things out of scratch and at my fucking leisure. I’m not a miracle worker.”

Lupin walked up the steps and planted himself beside him.

“Besides, where’s the fun in that?” Snape asked. There was an unpleasant twinkle in his eye, and the smirk that danced on his pale, partially chapped lips was a tad bit smugger than Lupin was used to.

“I don’t think I can do this.” croaked Lupin.

“Oh, come now, Lupin!” groaned Snape. “This’ll be fun! It’s just like playing pretend, see? All you have to do is keep a straight face and follow my lead.” He fixed the collar on Lupin’s robes, raked his hair to a competent flatness, and picked the sleep grit from the inner corner of his eyes.

Lupin stopped Snape’s hand as he reached for the bell. “But what would I _say_?”

“Don’t say anything at all. I’ll do the talking, because you’ll surely be the end of us if you so much as open your mouth.” He reached again for the bell, but again the other man smacked his hand downward.

“But what if I _had_ to speak?”

“Be practical!” Snape hissed. “Try to find out what wasn’t in the obituaries and in that article in the Daily Prophet. Gather facts.” 

He rang the bell and light footsteps resounded from the other side of the door. A pleasant looking house elf showed them into the foyer.

From the drawing room came the voice of an elderly lady. “Who is it, Fibble?” she asked with slight asperity. “Haven’t I told you that I will not see anyone today? Send them away at once!”

“Pardon me, Mistress,” said the house elf in her small voice. “But these gentlemen come from the Ministry.”

Lupin and Snape stood side by side in the spacious hall, the latter stern and proud, the former mousy and tremulous. The elderly lady, her eyes inflamed to redness, inspected them harshly from the drawing room door. “I thought I’ve already given enough information to Inspector Bennett regarding the incident? What do I owe this impertinent visit for?” she demanded.

“Inspector  Bennett will be unable to continue his investigation due to some complications caused by his rheumatism. He subsequently tasked us younger officers to carry out the inquiry while he is confined in St. Mungo’s. I assure you, Mrs. Shafiq that my partner and I will do everything in our power to be of service.” Snape told her.

The lady’s hostile gaze did not waver. “And what are your names, pray tell?” she retorted.

Snape showed no sign of discountenance and continued as brassbound as ever. “My name is Inspector Tobias Prince and this is my partner Inspector Horace Ogden.” he said with a small gesture to a quailing Lupin. “Will you permit us to ask a few questions, as our good mentor and coworker, had not provided us with the particulars of the case? In truth, we’ve only been acquainted with the issue through the accounts provided by the Daily Prophet.”

There was an interminable pause before the lady of the house took out her lace handkerchief and blew her nose. Tears welled at the sides of her red eyes as she muttered to herself, “Why must I be burdened to relive the horror again and again? Oh, Haywood, if I had known it would come to this, I never should have left you with that thankless bitch.”

The cons stood in false sympathy and waited patiently for her consent. At last, the lady motioned them into the room and sat on a rich Persian divan. She called the house elf for tea and pastries, and dabbed at her eyes as the two men sat on the chairs opposite her. Snape was closely examining the woman, his hands laced under his chin and his elbows leisurely resting on his knees. Lupin noted that most of the furniture was of Eastern contrivance. The rug itself was marked by the rich and lively colors and patterns characteristic of the tastes of the Orientals. Large portraits of the family members adorned the high walls, and they bore the same traits he had seen in Alcott Shafiq the day he blundered into the sitting room at Spinner’s End. They were all dark, brawny, brown-eyed, and ostentatious. Their noticeably Western host, surrounded by all the oriental furniture and portraits, looked comically out of place.

“Well, get on with it.” the woman told the men haughtily. Fibble, the house elf, had presently hobbled into the room carrying a large tray of richly decorated china. She set this on the coffee table between the two divans and began to gingerly place the cups before the guests and her mistress. It was then that Snape noticed the florid speckled rash on her bony forearm. All of a sudden, he got up and asked if he could maybe have a chat with the house elf. “Horace,” he said to Lupin. “I leave Mrs. Shafiq to your judgment.” He took her out into the hall, shutting the doors to the lavish drawing room and leaving Lupin quaking in his oxfords under the hostile glare of his hostess. “Well, Inspector Ogden? I don’t have all day.” said she.

 _Inspector Ogden_. He felt himself smile. _I’m going to kill Severus for coming up with such a ridiculous name._

He had to relax, or else she’d have them thrown into Azkaban. This was just a game of pretend. He was good at that. Practically growing up with a trio of pranksters made him a spontaneous and effective, although not a compulsive, weaver of half-truths and white lies. He was quite sure he could conduct the disguise with enough gusto.

He cleared his throat. “Mrs. Shafiq, would you kindly tell me where you were when your husband’s body was discovered?”

Mrs. Shafiq sipped her tea graciously. “I was the one to discover his body. As I have already told your superior and the Daily Prophet, I was out visiting relations the day before and I came home, went into the room we used to share, and found him lifeless and rigid on the bed.”

“Who are these relations?”

“My sisters, Theresa Fawley and Athena Fawley.”

“At what exact time did you depart and when did you return?”

“I left him under the charge of Fibble and that serpent of a mudblood –”

_“Please don’t use that word, madam.”_

Mrs. Shafiq looked utterly astonished at the interruption, but Lupin looked as serious as ever. “That _woman_ , then, at around teatime. It wasn’t until a little past ten o’clock in the morning when I returned.” She continued.

“So you left at say five o’clock in the afternoon?”

“Somewhere around that time.” she replied a little unsurely.

“I understand that Ms. Staunton has been a resident of the house for a year now?”

“Indeed.” said Mrs. Shafiq with distaste.

“What was she like as a member of the household? Was she vindictive? Quiet? How would you describe her?”

“She’s what I’d call a chatterbox, always going on and on about _things_. I haven’t the mind to pay her any attention, but everyone seemed to find her a thing to fawn over. She was also stubborn and ignorant of simple house rules. She’d open the drawing room drapes when I’ve strictly told her that they were meant to be opened only during special occasions, and she’d loiter in halls that are only for best, and she’d always misplace the books she takes from the west wing library and never returns them to their proper place. She was all in all an insufferable pest of a creature, like a whirlwind in a dress.”  

“Ms. Staunton and the family house elf were the only ones left in the house?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Shafiq said empathically. “Alcott, my grandson, is the only other surviving member of the Shafiq family. That is if you do not count the terminally ill man confined in one of the towers in the east wing.”

Lupin’s brow furrowed. “I beg your pardon, madam,” he said slowly. “But was there or was there _not_ another living soul in the house when you left?”

“Tyrell Shafiq, the master of the house, has been quarantined in one of the towers ever since he was diagnosed with dragon pox. As usual, various attempts have been made to improve his condition, but sadly, none prevailed. He now sits there, often aloof and drunk, waiting for his imminent demise.” she explained, taking another sip from her cup.

“Could he not have taken part in the murder, as you are so convinced to call it so, of your husband?” asked Lupin.

Mrs. Shafiq tossed her head back and laughed. It was an unpleasant laugh; a cold, cruel laugh that sounded akin to the sharp crash of lightning in a stormy night sky. For a moment, Lupin thought she looked terrible and morbid as she sat there on the rich divan, dressed in splendid clothes that bore no mark of her mourning, sipping tea lavishly from a cup that might’ve cost fifty times more than his annual income. “Oh, dear, no!” she said between chuckles. Then, sharply, she said, “ _No!_ Of course, not! What motive could old Tyrell have to murder his own son? No, he was always locking himself up in his tower, drinking like a fish, positively oblivious to the world around him. The deaths of his scarce descendants have, of course, not helped his health.”

“Regarding this, Mrs. Shafiq, do you have any theories as to the sudden deaths of your relations?” asked Lupin.

She shook her head. “None at all. It all seems quite probable for elderly people to die of poor health conditions, think you not?”

“Yes, but, if I may, it is the sudden and the intriguing occurrence of these that lead me to the strange observation that the late family of Mr. Claiborne Shafiq died one at a time and in familial order. It seems to me a curious collection of events, yes?”

Mrs. Shafiq shrugged, unimpressed. “Well, you may see it that way, if you like.”

“Were you also present during the discovery of your late relatives, Mrs. Shafiq?”

She nodded. “So was Alcott.” she recalled. “The poor lad has had nothing but tribulations served to him. To tell you the truth, he’s never been an entirely happy boy, he was born into such a miserable life that you’d think he’d be as coarse as stone, but he’s a sweet boy – a loving boy – so my husband loved him, and he has been like a son to us all these years. I suppose you’ve noticed that a Shafiq son is also absent? It is because, Rudyard, that is Alcott’s grandfather, my younger brother-in-law, perished during the terrible reign of Gellert Grindelwald in Europe. Rudyard’s son, Maitland, took his own life right after Alcott’s birth. His wife died giving birth to the poor lad, and poor Maitland could hardly bear the loss. It was a terrible blow to old Tyrrell, and now that he finds that nearly all his family has been taken from him, he has resolved to do nothing to hinder his death. Oh! To think that we were all so contented before those doleful occurrences!”

Lupin did not know what to say. He watched the elderly lady wipe the tears from under her swollen eyes and sighed. “I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Shafiq.” He stood up from the divan. “I assure you that we will try our best to make whoever is to blame pay for their actions.”

“It’s that muggle-born, I tell you!” cried Mrs. Shafiq indignantly. “It’s her! Can’t you see? She was the only one with my husband before…” she trailed off as a spasm of pain rippled over her aged face. She shook it off and continued with a mighty conviction. “Inspector Ogden, I implore you to see reason! It is without a doubt her! She has the right motive to go with it, I swear!”

“What motive would that be, Mrs. Shafiq?”

“Don’t you see the theatricality of it? It’s as if this entire ruckus has jumped out of an evil play itself! The old family patriarch is dying, and when he dies all his fortune will go to his heir. Since his firstborn son is dead, the fortune will surely pass on to the next son, _my own Haywood_. Then, this blackguard outsider finds herself in a place of unspeakable luck as Alcott’s fiancée. She is thrilled by the idea of becoming a part of a wealthy family, and devices a cunning plan to further advance herself financially. She murders Haywood, making the next worthy heir, Tyrrell’s grandson, her fiancée, the inheritor of the family fortune!”

Lupin turned this over in his mind. It did seem a plausible theory, the only _obvious_ theory, but before he could tell Mrs. Shafiq what he thought of it, Snape threw open the drawing room doors and said, “Good thinking, Horace! It’s not at all wise to look at this puzzle at one angle. No, Mrs. Shafiq, it’s best if we test a few other theories other than your, dare I say, slightly prejudiced one.”

He was tucking something into his pocket, and he placed his hand on Lupin’s shoulder. “We best be off, now.” he told their hostess. “Lots of things to do back in the office. Thank you for your time, Mrs. Shafiq. You will hear from us soon.” He bowed and promptly left the room, his arm around his companion. Fibble was in the foyer, looking quite shaken as she weakly shut the door behind them.

“What on earth have you done to that poor creature?” Lupin asked Snape.

They walked briskly through the gate and down the dirt road. “What do you say to a quick trip to London?” Snape asked, ignoring the query. “There’s a strand of cafés at a certain street that serve coffee and sandwiches. They’re run by muggles, yes, but our icebox is empty, so I thought it’d be fine to maybe stop by and grab a snack.”

Lupin relayed his entire conversation with Mrs. Shafiq to Snape as accurately as he could. They sat in one of the café’s outdoor tables. They had a mug of coffee and a platter of sandwiches apiece. Snape said nothing when Lupin had finished talking. He simply took a large bite off his tomato-lettuce-and-cheese sandwich. “So, what did _you_ find out?” Lupin said, trying to make him talk. He was answered only by silence and chewing. “Did you find out _anything_ at all and do you plan on _telling_ me?”

“No.”

Lupin looked at him with his brows crinkled over his nose. “No, _you haven’t_ or no, _you’re not telling me_?”

“No, I’m not telling you.”

“And why’s that?”

“I’d like to think of my method of reasoning as a train in a station.” He said, pushing his sandwich platter and leaning on the tabletop. He made a sort of rectangular shape with his long fingers. “I don’t let the train leave the station until I’m absolutely certain that all the cars are connected. As much as possible, I don’t want to talk about what I know to anyone because their outside opinion and mediocre hindsight usually sets the train off track.” He dramatically waved his hands to the side, imitating a derailing train. “So, in all sense, I believe it’s best to keep my thoughts to myself until I fully understand the case.”

The look on Lupin was nothing short of unimpressed. He cocked his eyebrow and said, “Are you telling me metaphorically that I’m mediocre?”

Snape’s eyes made a comical pop. He began to cough and sputter. “Well, technically I didn’t mean _you_ in particular. I merely meant to point out that other people are… well…” He stammered with a mouthful of bread and lettuce.

“Severus,” Lupin cut in, his voice low and grave. “What will it take for you to trust me?”

Snape did not answer. He pretended he didn’t hear him at all. He swallowed his lunch and changed the subject, “Our hostess is singular of character, don’t you think?”

“Under what context?” Lupin, a bit disheartened, asked, sipping his coffee. A handful of dried-up orange leaves were blown down the sidewalk by a cold autumn breeze, and a jittering robin’s egg-blue Volkswagen rumbled past.

Snape freed his hair from the ponytail and shrugged. “She struck me as a woman with expensive tastes, a woman who’s used to getting what she wants when she wants, and –”

“A woman who isn’t mourning at all?”

Snape looked shocked at this statement. “Well,” he said slowly. “That’s one interpretation of her behavior. What I was about to say was that she’s quite fond of baking pastries, as I heard from Fibble, and obviously tendentious.”

Lupin snorted. “You can say _that_ again.”

“She’s awfully convinced of Ms. Staunton’s guilt, although I have to agree that she is the only probable suspect. She may be wrongly accused or she may have disguised her murder to look like a sudden death similar to that of the previously deceased Shafiqs. Then again, that is still to be proven by one way or another.” Snape’s eyes were again unusually bright, and another mischievous smirk lingered on his thin lips. Lupin watched as he reclined on the chair and leisurely watched the empty street. “I don’t like that look.” he told him.

He thought he heard Snape laugh, or scoff more likely. “How,” he whispered, “Do you suppose can we get ourselves into Azkaban?”


	5. The Convicted Witch

Snape sent Alcott a prompt dispatch to accompany them to Azkaban Prison the next day, since it was only the aurors who knew where in the undulating bareness of the sea it stood, so that they may interrogate Felicity Staunton. Alcott was more than happy to, and he very excitedly patted the two men on the back as they apparated into the damp, derelict lobby. “Now, you’ll see what I’ve been trying to tell you. You’ll look into my sweet Felicity’s eyes and see that she’s as innocent as a lamb.” He kept telling the two. “Go ahead, professor! Go ahead and read her mind, you’ll see that she’s to blame for nobody’s death!”

“Hush, Mr. Shafiq!” Snape told him sharply. “Now, tell me which cell she’s in.”

“I believe they put her in cell 629.”

Lupin nearly broke his neck as he looked around for the guards, who would without a doubt arrest them for trespassing, but thankfully the lobby was desolate. His hand wandered over to the lump on his hip where his concealed wand sat, warm and reassuring in that numbing, windswept, sunless place. It was nice, he thought, to have a little bit of comfort in that godforsaken asylum, where, even in the absence of the dementors, bloodcurdling shrieks and howls from the imprisoned witches and wizards reverberated against the walls.

“Which stairway do we take?” asked Snape urgently. The hood on his closefitting black Azkaban guard robes was shoved over his face. The only thing protruding from it was his large nose and his sharp chin. Alcott Shafiq had provided them with the robes upon request.

Alcott hemmed and hawed, trapped in a split second of reflection. “For Merlin’s sake, Shafiq!” cried Snape. “This is no time to dilly dally, our lives, as much as your fiancée’s, is at stake at this very moment. No one must know that we are here at all, and we can’t have you hanging around. I strongly suggest that you tell us which stairway to take and leave at once.”

“Alright! No need to make such a fuss!” yelled the other man. “It’s _that_ one.” He pointed to the one to their left.

At once, Snape took Lupin by the collar and hurled him toward the dim, steep, slimy, salt-smelling steps. “Quickly!” he whispered in his ear. He shoved Lupin’s hood over his scarred forehead. “Look no one in the eye, keep your head down, and say _no_ word.”

They kept climbing, stopping for nothing and no one. In that dark, winding stairwell, Lupin kept tripping over his own feet and Snape had to heave at his sprawled out form with all his might to set him right. They counted the archways that they passed, and registered the number of guards posted at each corner of the maze-like prison. They nondescriptly slipped by five archways when, with a jolt, they stood aside to let pass a robed guard with a large silver badge on his chest. The guard glanced at them with a dangerously curious shadow over his face. Lupin, head bent low, limbs shaking, heart pounding, laced his clammy fingers with Snape’s. He wouldn’t have done it if he could have helped it, but he was in so much fear of being found out that he could think of nothing else to do. He was aware of the unfriendly sideways glance Snape shot him, but he refused to take away his hand. He was on the brink of a nervous breakdown, and he feared he’d tumble down the steps in a dead faint if he didn’t hold on to something.

“Good day, gentlemen.” said the guard with a dubious nod. He continued his descent, continuously looking back up at them, trying hard to get a glimpse of their face.    

“And a jolly good day, to you, my friend!” replied Snape with a convincing accent. He charged up the steps, dragging Lupin by the wrist. “That was a close one.” he muttered. “A bloody close one! Don’t you _ever_ do that again, Lupin.” he snarled. He meant the unsolicited hand-holding, and Lupin tried to explain, but he couldn’t find the right words. It was wrong no matter how he looked at it.

“Really, Severus,” Lupin said as they passed the archway and briskly navigated the bleak corridors. “We shouldn’t have come here at all. I won’t be surprised if we end up in one of these cells ourselves in a few minutes.”

“Be quiet!” barked Snape. He kept walking ahead, like a bloodhound hot upon on the trail of a quail or a pheasant. He threw his head from side to side, trying to decide which turn to take. At last, he froze with the look of a dejected hound that lost track of a scent. “I’m lost.” said he.

“ _What_?!” hissed Lupin. There were a couple of footsteps heading their direction, and someone was whistling a happy tune. Lupin felt his heart rattle wildly against his ribcage. “You can’t be lost now! Do something!”

“ _Shut it_! It’s this way.” He took Lupin by the collar, took a right, and walked down the hall. Most of the cells there were empty. On the other hand, the fifth cell to their left contained a heap of matted straw where a woman with long raven hair sat with her back to the bars in a sort of stupor. Her expensive dress was quite worn and dirty, but its grandeur was not lost in that filthy hovel. “Ms. Felicity Staunton?” called Snape from without the bars.

Felicity Staunton made no noticeable movement. “Ms. Staunton, I –”

He was interrupted by the sound of rapid footfalls from the corridor they had just left. There were some urgent cries and Lupin knew then and there that they had been found out. “Severus, I think now would be a wonderful time to make use of your fabled skill in Legilimency.”

Snape turned to the woman in the cell and said through gnashed teeth, “Ms. Staunton, I am Severus Snape, Professor and Headmaster emeritus of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Mr. Alcott Shafiq sent me.”

At the mention of the name of the man she loved, Felicity Staunton turned around, painfully slowly. A few strands of straw clung to her unwashed hair. “Alcott?” she mumbled.

The footsteps were getting closer. The shouts were getting louder.

“Severus,”

“ _Ms. Staunton_!” yelled Snape. “For the love of Merlin, **_look at me_**!”

He took her chin in one of his hands and stared deep into her lackluster eyes. He searched within her vulnerable mind, rummaging amongst memories, skimming through thoughts. He was vaguely aware of the guards, lead by the one they met at the stairwell, closing in on his companion, and the sudden blast of red light that erupted from the tip of their wands. He indistinctly registered Lupin’s attempts to fight them and of the hard thud his body made when he was stunned full on the chest. He felt a heavy hand close around his thin arm, swiftly dug his elbow into the guard’s exposed stomach, and whipped around, wand in hand.

He knocked them off their feet as they came for him and with legs as limber as a fox’s, he ran to the open window at the end of the corridor. He was a foot away from the sill when he heard a cry for help behind him, like a sharp knife thrown from a distance that buried itself right in the middle of his back. Lupin was trying his best to break free from his captors, who twisted his arms behind his back and grabbed his hair in handfuls, doing all they could to subdue him.

 _“Help me! Please!”_ he screamed.

With a groan and a curse, Snape, leaping from the sill and dissolving into what appeared to the guards as black mist, shoved the coarse captors against the iron bars and lifted Lupin into the air. He flew out and away from that dreadful place as fast as his magic allowed.

As he found himself hovering over the polluted river of Cokeworth, which snaked around the town like a large stinking gray serpent, Snape, exhausted, dropped Lupin into the water and flung himself after him. They plummeted into its murky body and sunk to its littered bed. Lupin broke from the depths with a splash and a great big gasp, a wad of food wrapping and some dull green alga caught in his hood, and was followed by Snape, whose lank hair was stuck over his eyes. They gasped and crawled up the reeking bank, disheveling overgrown weeds and disturbing a couple of centipedes.

Snape was the first one on his feet and he staggered forward to the direction of Spinner’s End. Lupin was on him in a minute like a madman. There was a loud shattering sound as his fist connected with Snape’s jaw, and the latter fell doubled over on one knee. “You son of a bitch!” screamed Lupin. “You son of a _bitch_! You were going to leave me there, weren’t you?! You were going to leave me, you greasy old git!”

A deep cut on Snape’s lip bled like mad, dribbling down his chin to his neck and to the front of his robes. He thought the blow might have dislodged a couple of his teeth. “Yes,” he gurgled with a mouthful of blood. He spat it out onto the muddy ground and wiped the side of his swelling mouth with his sleeve. “I was going to leave you, because I bear no sentiment whatsoever for a whining cur who’s brought nothing but trouble to me ever since he arrived on my doorstep!”

“As if I wanted to be there in the first place!” Lupin spat. “As if I care two-pence about your mortgage dilemma! As if I should be grateful for your good graces! I would rather have slept under a bridge if I knew any of this was going to happen!”

“Oh for Merlin’s sake, _grow up_! We’ve been thrown together for what? Three weeks? And all I’ve ever heard from you are groans and grievances. All you ever do is complain, complain, complain!” Snape harangued. “You’ve never done anything to solve any of your problems. You’ve been waiting around for a miracle, and you wonder why you’re still here with me with holes in your shoes and patches on your shirt. If you could have done something – sacrificed a little bit more – you wouldn’t need to deal with me in the first place. Life is what you make it, Lupin. Don’t go around pointing fingers when you’re miserable.”

They stood by the river, beside themselves with rage, their shoes sinking in the fetid sludge. It was Snape who picked up the argument when Lupin started forward. “A fine man you are,” he gloated. “Always so eager to please, always willing to let people walk all over you, but if they fail to pass you a treat you start to bite. Is that how Potter kept you in check? By tossing you bucket loads of treats to do his bidding?”

Lupin kept walking.

“You could have stopped it, Lupin.” said Snape. “You could have stopped them. But, no, you chose to turn away, to ignore everything, even though you knew it was all wrong. A fine man you are. One bloody fine man who chose his bullying friends over his responsibility as a prefect. You’re a puppet, Lupin, and that’s all you’ll ever be.”

Lupin turned around and rushed at him. “You talk of growing up, when you yourself can’t let go of the past.  Eighteen years ago today, the same man you insult died with the woman who you claimed was your friend.” he said, jabbing Snap in the chest with his finger. “The least you could do is to show some respect!”

His cheeks were streaked with tears, and his voice broke before he could finish his sentence. He tried his best to hold Snape’s spiteful gaze, but the tears kept coming and he looked down to quickly wipe them away. With one last dismissive look at his dirty, pitiful face, Snape shook his head, spat on the ground, and took about two steps forward – showing just how much respect he had for the friend Lupin revered and missed with all his heart. He seized Snape’s lapels, hauled him back in front of him, and rammed his head against his face, breaking his nose with a terrible _crack!_


	6. The Hidden Cellar

Pressing down a bag of ice against his bleeding nose, his soggy clothes clinging to his body, Snape sat dejectedly in his father’s armchair. A great pool of dirty water soaked the ragged carpet under his feet. Lupin had made himself a mug of gritty coffee and was about to climb the rickety steps when he called him back.

“It’s a half moon tonight.” said he in a slightly nasal voice. “The next full moon is in seven days.”

Lupin didn’t reply. He tossed him a small rusty key.

“There’s a cauldron in the corner of my room.” he explained. “Blue smoke. You won’t miss it.”

He studied the little generic key and the man who had given it to him. “Wolfsbane?” he asked, slightly baffled. Snape nodded.

“Have a heart and drink a goblet of it.” he told him.

Lupin clutched the key to his chest. “You made wolfsbane potion for _me_?”

“Yes,” Snape lowered the ice bag and met his eyes. “What do you think I’ve been doing for the last few days?”

“So, when you said “matters of life and death” you meant –”

“You and the coming full moon.” He replaced the bag on his nose and sunk back into the chair. He seemed to have drifted into sleep. His breathing was slow and deep, and yet he never took the bag off his face. A quiet whistling sound escaped his swollen nose whenever he exhaled, and for a moment Lupin felt sorry for hurting him. He seemed to be in a great deal of discomfort. But then, he remembered their heated exchange of words by the river and how there was no hint of repentance in Snape’s blank, beady black eyes. By the time he ladled the potion into a tall goblet, he didn’t feel half as sorry, and he slept fitfully, knowing he did the right thing, even though the bitter aftertaste from the potion was stuck stubbornly to his tongue.

They hardly talked in the morning. In fact, Snape barely left his room. _He must’ve gotten up in the middle of the night and shut himself up after I went to bed_ , Lupin thought, _and –_

What exactly did he do there? Sleep? Like a bat when the sun was up? Did he sleep at all? He looked like he would look and feel better with some more of it, though. Maybe he was still nursing his broken nose. Anyway, Lupin didn’t care.

Lupin was alone for the rest of the day. A large dirty gray owl delivered the Daily Prophet, but he didn’t so much as touch it as glance at it. He ate a dry wafer with tepid tea for lunch and tried cleaning his room in the afternoon, but the grime appeared to have seeped into the very walls and scraping them off seemed absolutely pointless. He went down to the sitting room and picked a couple of books from the bookcases. He read until twilight on the ratty settee. A sharp ache suddenly shot into his temple, and the book dropped from his hands as he clapped them to his forehead. A cry of pain escaped from his lips and he stumbled to the deep steel kitchen sink. The cold water relieved him for a bit, but the headache came back twice as painful and this time it was accompanied by a numbing sensation in his spine.

Stiffly, he made his way up to his room and lay down on the bed. He tried to sleep the pain away, but it was damn near impossible with the moonlight beating down on him through the window. He could swear he could hear his bones growing under his flesh, and his ears drummed as too much blood and adrenaline flowed through his veins.

A snarl was forming at the back of his throat. He choked it back. Something had to be done.

“Severus,” he called weakly. He rapped at the door. “Severus, please.”

He knocked twice, thrice, then the door opened. Snape was quite surprised to see him. “What?” he asked groggily, as if he had been woken from a sweet slumber.

“You need to keep me somewhere.” he said urgently, gripping the doorpost. “Somewhere I can’t get out.”

There was a look of real fear on Snape’s drowsy face, maybe it was the strange way Lupin’s fingers were curving or the way his lips twitched to reveal a couple of sharp canines, but he outright flew into action. He pushed past him, took his arm, and thundered down the steps. He threw open the bookshelf, a score or more of books tumbling from their places, and tipped the settee over to its side. He flung the rug aside with fumbling hands and Lupin saw a large black ring embedded in the boards. “In here.” Snape said. A neat square of floor was unhinged with quite some difficulty and Lupin looked into the dark hole. “How deep does it go?” asked Lupin weakly.

“I’m afraid there’s not enough room for you to stand in, but it’s wide enough for you to lay down in.” said Snape. “Did you take your dosage of wolfsbane for today?”

Lupin started. No, he hadn’t. He had forgotten.

“In.” Snape told him sternly. He slammed the trapdoor shut, leaving Lupin in the dark. He raced back to his room, took a goblet, dipped it into the cauldron of wolfsbane, filled it to the brim, and headed back to the sitting room. “Lupin,” he began as he swung open the trapdoor. “You –”

He froze. In the cellar, Lupin, crouched in the darkness, looked up at him with eyes he could hardly call human. Without warning, he lurched forward and made a wild grab for Snape as he knelt by the mouth of the cellar door. Snape slammed the trapdoor shut, weighing it down with his hands as Lupin scratched, yelled, and pushed at the other side of the floor – struggling to get out. Sitting upon the trapdoor, knees trembling and heart racing, Snape wept helplessly into his palm. He wasn’t too fond of himself, but he never felt so much fear for his life like he did that night.

When Lupin’s restless snuffling and shrieking subsided, he dragged the settee back over the cellar door and weighed it down with the biggest, heaviest, and fattest books in the house. He couldn’t possibly go back to bed, not with a transforming werewolf under his feet.  He sat at the lopsided table, wand in hand, and waited diligently for the dawn.

He permitted Lupin to crawl out of the cellar in the morning, and watched from a safe distance as he stretched out on the settee. It looked like he grew a couple of inches, but lost quite a few pounds, overnight. He groaned and rubbed down his sore neck and shoulders. He looked over to the nook where Snape stood. “The first night’s always the roughest.” he said casually with a handsome smile. His voice was quite hoarse and he coughed after he talked. The sun bathed his head in its rich golden light as it came through the sitting room window, and the flecks of gray stood out against his mop of brown hair.    

“Do you want anything?” Snape asked gingerly.

“A blanket.” said Lupin. “It’s a chilly morning.”

Snape threw a large fleece blanket at his feet. It smelled slightly of mothballs and the inside of a particularly old linen closet. Lupin wrapped this blanket around his aching body and sunk his head into the cushioned armrest. He felt something small and thin as it was tossed into his lap. It crinkled and crackled as he shifted to look down at it.

It was his half-eaten bar of chocolate, wrapped in shredded tinfoil.

“I don’t know why you take comfort in it at all.” said Snape from the kitchen area. He was frying a thin slice of ham and slicing a particularly large and red tomato on the tabletop. Lupin’s mouth began to water. He hadn’t noticed how hungry he was.

“The sugar makes me feel better.” he told Snape, slipping a small square of the sweet into his dry mouth. “I thought you didn’t eat meat?”

Snape placed two thick slices of tomato and a large leaf of leftover lettuce on a slice of white bread. He let the ham sizzle and spit on the pan for some time before using the spatula to put it neatly on the bread. “This isn’t for me.” He finished the sandwich and set it before one of the chairs. “This is for you.”

Lupin stared at him oddly. Snape just made him breakfast, despite the fact that he emphatically told him that he wasn’t his “housekeeper”. He also made him a cauldron of wolfsbane potion when he firmly pointed out that he would never do him favors. Did he hit him a little too hard?

“The wolfsbane… I missed a dosage.” he said. “There’s no use for it now.” He thought a little. “Pretty soon it wouldn’t be safe for you to be in the house.”

“I suppose I can lock you up in the cellar until the full moon passes.” Snape said.

“You will?”

“I don’t think I have a choice.” replied Snape, filling a frosted drinking glass with lukewarm water. “Now, eat up. I don’t want you dying under my charge.”

Lupin ate with relish. He studied Snape’s heavy-eyed face, and again he started to feel sorry for him. He didn’t have to make him breakfast. He didn’t have to help him. He didn’t have to make him the potion. He didn’t have to save him when the guards had him in Azkaban. He could have walked away blithely, and Lupin would have understood, but he didn’t. Somehow, it made Lupin think that maybe he _did_ mean well. Perhaps he _did_ care. Perhaps Snape was just too proud to admit it. Perhaps he decided beforehand that helping the man who used to consort with the boy who tormented him in his youth just didn’t fit in with his ideals and was vainly trying to keep himself from caring too much. But he _did_ , and strangely, it made Lupin feel a little better, a little warmer inside.

Before he could utter a quick but rather sincere “thank you”, his eyes fell to the open issue of the Daily Prophet beside his plate. “It looks as though we’ve made the front page.” he said, torn between amusement and horror.

 

 _BASTILLE BREAK-IN_ [the headline read]

_Two unidentified wizards were found within Azkaban Prison yesterday afternoon. Inspector Sebastian Soames testifies that the perpetrators were apprehended outside the cell of Ms. Felicity Staunton, who is suspected of the murder of the pure-blood wizard, Haywood Shafiq. Unfortunately, the pair was able to escape through the window, since one of them was capable of unsupported flight. The pair was disguised in the garb of the prison guards, who themselves were baffled as to how the outsiders were able to access the esoteric building. Their guess is that the miscreants had an accomplice within the Auror Office, who without a doubt aided them in their scheme. Until now, the prison guards have no clue as to the perpetrators’ agendas._

 

“It doesn’t matter.” Snape said dryly.

“I do hope that our risky stunt proved useful.”

“It did.”

“Did it?” asked Lupin incredulously.

“We know now that Ms. Staunton is innocent.”

 Lupin nearly dropped the glass. “H-h-how do you know this? Are you positively certain?”

“The vulnerable mind is the easiest to pry. I saw everything she had. I read all her thoughts. I found no tinge of malice in them at all.”

“Well, did it ever occur to you that it may just be what she wanted you to see?”

Snape scoffed. “She couldn’t have contrived something so ambitious in that state of shock.” he said haughtily. “She didn’t murder her fiancée’s grandfather. He supported their engagement. He welcomed her into the family. She loved him and the old man loved her like she was his own grandchild.”

“Yes, but how can you prove this? If she didn’t do it, then who did?”

“Not all the cars are connected yet, Lupin, you have to give me time, but I have a strong hunch as to who did it.” Snape told him. “Now, you mustn’t bother yourself with such trivialities. That’s my responsibility. What you need to do is rest.” He made him lie down in the settee when he was done eating and told him to holler if he needed anything. He retired to his room and Lupin dozed off until the sun sank in the west, when Snape woke him up so he could go back down to the hidden cellar where he would await the passing of both the waxing moon and his oppressive transformation.      


	7. The Long Awaited Solution

The remainder of Lupin’s week consisted of wistful naps in the morning and sleepless nights of agony. Every time he crawled out of the miserable, musty cellar, the scratches and bites he inflicted upon himself in his temporary madness increased in number. Each day debilitated him, taking away the vigor in his bones and dulling his senses. He lost even his skimpy appetite, and no matter how much Snape forced him, he could never take more than four bites off anything he was given.

Felicity Staunton’s trial was four days away, and Snape, laconic and obviously distrait, sat on the rug in his tartan dressing robe and a pair of khaki knit wool socks. Eight books with detailed illustrations of plants and flowers were open in front of him. He was bent over, perusing _The Big Bad Book of Botany_ , while Lupin lay lethargically on the settee.

“I like your socks.” said Lupin. He hardly had any voice left, but the unusually bright morning sun kept his spirits up and he smiled through his pain.

“Don’t make fun of me.” Snape told him indignantly.

“No, really,” assured Lupin, his voice dripping with veracity. “I like them. They’re nice.”

“Should I thank you or should I tell you to get sober?”

“I think you should tell me who gave it to you.”

“Dumbledore.”

Lupin smiled, but it made his temple throb so he stopped. “I thought so.” he said cheerfully. “I liked him a lot. He was a good man. He was fond of you, wasn’t he?”

“As a possession.” mused Snape resentfully. He bent lower and ran a finger under a specific sentence on the page of the gigantic volume on his lap. “As a tool in his great big chest of oddities and curiosities.” Lupin noticed a long leaf, three pressed purple and green bell-shaped flowers, and five black berries sitting on a white handkerchief spread on the rug beside Snape. “What are those?” asked Lupin.

“I’m glad you ask. This is _atropa belladonna_ ,” answered Snape enthusiastically, gesturing to the handkerchief and its contents. He was using his classroom voice, and Lupin thought how, if he had been one of his students, the one thing he may have liked about him as a teacher would be that deep distinctive silky voice. “It goes by many names, such as belladonna, deadly nightshade, devil’s berries, naughty man’s cherries, death cherries, beautiful death, and devil’s herb. It’s native to Europe, North Africa, and West Asia. It’s one of the world’s most lethal plants, and in my opinion, the most versatile, since you can use almost every part of it to make the most potent poisons. Although the roots are its deadliest parts, the toxic alkaloids run through the entirety of the plant. Among these toxins are scopolamine and hyoscyamine, which cause delirium and hallucinations.”

“To consume a single leaf or ten deceitfully sweet berries can kill a grown man.” He held up one shiny black berry for Lupin to see. Lupin plucked it from Snape’s willowy fingers and watched it roll in his rosy palm. It looked like a little spot of midnight in the glow of the early November day. “To even brush against the foliage can cause a very irritating and painful allergic reaction. The symptoms of nightshade poisoning – such as dilation of the pupils, sensitivity to light, blurred vision, nausea, vomiting, the appearance of rashes, slurred speech, hallucination, delirium, convulsions, and paralysis – come swift, and if they are left untreated or if medical help is far off, death will be imminent. It is said that Macbeth used deadly nightshade to poison the invading Danes in 1040. There’s also evidence that Locusta used deadly nightshade to murder the Roman emperor Claudius, under contract with Agrippina the Younger.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Oh, these samples came from the Shafiq Estate. You should have seen the gardens and greenhouses; you would not believe that anything would be able to grow there at all. Pitiful Fibble has been tasked to water all the plants within the grounds every morning for as long as she can remember, and she’s told me that she more or less comes out unscathed.”

“More or less?”

“Well,” said Snape. “She accidentally brushes against the nightshade when she waters it.”

“I never thought Haywood Shafiq would cultivate poisonous plants.” remarked Lupin. He was playing with the little berry, rolling it between his forefinger and thumb.

“All in the name of his academic achievements.” Snape said over the sound of rustling parchment. “He was on the brink of concluding the final manuscript for his book, it’s indeed a shame he was not able to finish it. I daresay it would have been one of the most comprehensive works in the field of Botany _and_ Herbology.”

Lupin looked at him with a tinge of annoyance. “How much do you know?” he snapped.

“Nearly everything.” said Snape proudly.

“How long will you keep me in the dark? Can’t you tell me anything?”

Snape rose from the floor and sat in his armchair, hands under his jaw and elbows on his knees. “I suppose I can tell you a few things, but you have to forgive me for not elaborating them, Lupin. I hope to keep the cars connected by divulging as little as possible, since they are attached to each other by such weak-linked chains. First of all, I am certain that the deaths of all the Shafiq family members are connected.”

Lupin’s eyes grew wide. He endeavored to sit up. “But –”

“Now, Lupin, I would appreciate it if you gave me none of that.” said Snape, restraining his words with an upraised hand. “All I can ask of you is your understanding. I promise that when all the facts are in place, I will tell you all. Second, you must also believe me when I tell you that I am absolutely certain that the late Shafiq family members were murdered by the same person who took Haywood Shafiq’s life.”

“And Ms. Staunton’s innocence?”

“Unquestionable.”

“Then, who…”

Snape shot him a curious look. For once, Lupin saw that there was a tinge of uncertainty in those calculating eyes. “There are but two things left to do in order to confirm the murderer’s identity.” he said, and as he did he stared straight into Lupin’s eyes. “The fulfillment of one requires your participation, and so I ask you, Lupin, are you willing to take part in it?”

Lupin thought for a moment. Then, acknowledging the hesitant glaze over Lupin’s sickly eyes, Snape assured him that if he would refuse, it would bear no great consequence. “Is what you have in mind dangerous?” asked Lupin.

“I will not deny that I will be putting you in harm’s way once you agree,” admitted Snape. “But I swear on my honor that I will do everything in my power to protect you. You may give me your entire confidence.”

“You _promise_?” Lupin asked incredulously.

“I do.” answered Snape flatly.

Lupin chuckled. “Alright then.”  

 

There was an insistent pecking noise at the window pane the next evening. Lupin, his arms wrapped in bandages where he had bitten himself, keenly spooned a splendidly made chicken soup into his dry mouth on the kitchen table. He was feeling particularly cheerful, which Snape found exasperating. It had been raining since the early hours before sunrise and Snape had fixed about two dozen leaks with his wand in the last half hour.

“There’s an owl at the window.” cried Lupin, adjusting the big fluffy purple scarf that he had been lent. He sipped some more of the sumptuous broth.

“Get it.” said Snape dryly from the back door. He was shining around his wand at the decaying ceiling, looking for more drips to fix. “I’m rather busy at the moment.”

“My rib still hurts.” said Lupin, raising a spoonful to his lips. He accidentally spilled a dribble on his shirt and seared a patch of his skin. “ _Damn_ ,”

Snape flicked his wrist to fix yet another leak and muttered angrily, “Well, if you hadn’t so thick-wittedly thrown yourself against that old wine rack, you wouldn’t be moaning about it nor could you use that as an excuse, you mewling little pup.” He hurried over to the window, slid it open, and caught the exhausted owl in his arms just as its wings failed it. He carried it over to the table, nabbed the purple scarf off Lupin’s head, and wrapped it around the bird’s windblown feathers. It was shivering. He looked disparagingly at Lupin. “You inhuman beast, look what you’ve done to it. I won’t be surprised if it died right here and now.”

Lupin grimaced. “It’s in fine fettle.” he exclaimed, despite the bird’s protruding tongue, rolling eyeballs, and trembling body. “I’m sure the owls employed in the post are well-trained for such weather conditions.”

He received a sharp whack on the head. “Your present incapacitation doesn’t grant you a special right to treat me like a wet nurse.” he snapped. He dragged the bowl toward the owl and urged it to drink, but it only tipped over and breathed shallowly. Snape dipped his finger into the bowl, pried open the bird’s beak, and forced a few drops of the broth down the bird’s throat. He did this a couple of times before settling it by the fire to warm its bones. He relieved it of a small waterproofed parchment envelope that had been tied to its legs.

“So, who sent it?”

“Finish your soup.” Snape told him. “After that, go down to the cellar. I have no wish to die tonight.”

Lupin pushed the bowl away. “Not after you dip your cruddy fingers into it.” he complained.

“Fine.” said Snape, taking the bowl from him. “The bird needs it more than you do.” He brought it over to the owl, which, after a few minutes of unconsciousness, hobbled unto its feet and helped itself to some chicken pieces. Snape collapsed into his armchair and read the letter the owl had delivered. Noticing that Lupin was still sitting at the table, he sighed and said in his most brash tone, “A couple of storm clouds won’t shut out the moonlight, Lupin.”

It appeared that the cheerfulness had suddenly left his body, and he sat there, looking tired and weak as ever. He pulled his flimsy shirt closer to his ragged body and stood up. He scuttled over to the settee, pushed it against the book shelf, and rolled the rug away. The metal ring on the trapdoor felt colder, and the gaping hole seemed to breathe. He sat on the edge, his long legs dangling within the darkness below. Unsteadily, he turned to Snape.

“You know,” he said quietly, sincerely. “Anyone… uhh… would have thrown me out by now… but you’ve done the exact opposite. You’ve… you’ve put your life in grave danger by keeping me in here, you know.”

“Well,” said Snape. “Better me than a handful of innocent muggles.”

Lupin gave a small laugh. He smiled and he saw Snape awkwardly return it. “Right.” he said. “ _Right._ ” He stopped as he was lowering himself further into the dark, damp cellar. He searched for Snape’s catatonic eyes. He wanted to make sure he was listening, and he hoped, by Merlin, he hoped he believed what he was about to say.

“I’m sorry, Severus.”

There was an unexpected flash in those dead eyes, and Snape sat rigid with shock he couldn’t seem, or didn’t try, to hide.

“I’m _so_ sorry,” said Lupin. “ _For_ _everything_.”

 Snape grew pale and turned away. “Tomorrow, at around tea time, we’ll be going back to talk with Mrs. Shafiq.”

After a while, Lupin replied, “Yes, of course. Just, don’t forget to bring me back here before sunset.”

“I never forget.”

The darkness swallowed Lupin and Snape gently replaced the trapdoor to the floorboards. He put the furniture back in place and listened. Lupin was awfully quiet for the first fifteen seconds, then he started to snuffle and throw his weight against the door above his head. There was a low, guttural shriek of frustration as the partially transformed werewolf realized that he could not come out.

The frightened, recovered owl flew unto Snape’s trembling knee, and the two of them sat apprehensively in the kitchen. Lupin, or the _thing_ that used to be Lupin, was now emanating whines and snarls as he attacked himself. “You want to fly away now, don’t you?” Snape asked the owl, which was now safely perched on his shoulder. It pecked his ear and tugged his hair, quite affectionately. “I do, too.”

Snape shifted his attention to the floor. Lupin must’ve grown tired. It was eerily quiet now, save for the hard splattering of rain against the roof. “But I can’t leave him here, nor can I make him leave.” Snape said to the bird. “Not when the full moon is two days away. He needs to be sheltered somewhere. Somewhere he can’t hurt anyone and where he’d be safe from persecutors.”

The owl hooted. “Yes, I might be mad.” Snape told it. “After all, I’m talking to a bird.”

 

“It’s a pleasure to have you here again, inspectors.” said Mrs. Shafiq as they stepped into the foyer. Her eyes were still red and swollen, and she clutched a lace handkerchief in one jeweled hand. “I suppose you’re here to bring news of your investigation?”

“Indeed, Mrs. Shafiq.” replied Snape. Fibble was standing behind her mistress, looking anxiously at the guests.

“May I interest you with tea?” the elderly witch said.

Snape nodded. “Although, I’d prefer a glass of water.”

“Fibble!” the witch snapped. The house elf flinched. “Bring our best to the drawing room at once!”

She went away with a froufrou to the double doors and into the room. They followed her and sat side by side on a divan from across their hostess. Fibble reappeared with a tray of cups and blueberry muffins. She set a full cup of tea before Lupin and a tall glass of water before Snape. Mrs. Shafiq eyed them dangerously. “Please,” she told them. “Help yourselves to the muffins! I assure you, it won’t hurt.”

Snape grabbed one off the dish and Lupin did the same, but the muffin stayed in Snape’s hand while Lupin bit into his with false relish. “How is it, Horace?” asked Snape. Lupin was nodding. “It’s very good.” he replied, and he wasn’t lying. “Very sweet.”  He flushed it down with a swig of tea.

“The berries have been picked only this morning.” explained Mrs. Shafiq as she watched Lupin take another bite. “I believe that it’s always best to use the freshest ingredients,” she turned to Snape, her eyes narrowed to slits. “Wouldn’t you agree, Professor Snape?”

Lupin looked up to see that Snape was contesting Mrs. Shafiq’s inimical glare with one of his most spiteful sneers. “Did you think I was so foolish and naïve to not find out?!” the hag yelled. She sprang up, her wand aimed at Snape’s chest. Lupin had withdrawn his own wand and pointed it at their apprehender. Snape rose to his feet with an air of astonishing composure, his glass of water in hand. “I’ll have you know, that –”

The angry witch’s words were lost in a wet gurgle as Snape threw the contents of the glass at her face, and she fell back on the divan, screeching and clawing at the air. “Professor Snape _must_ go now!” cried Fibble, who had been standing quietly at the corner.

“She knows who you are?!” exclaimed Lupin.

“Doesn’t anyone?” retorted Snape. Mrs. Shafiq was breathing rapidly, a look of fury pasted unto her dripping, wrinkled face. She bared her teeth and glared at them with her beady eyes. No trace of redness or swelling could be found there now. She grappled for her wand, but Snape and Lupin were now quickly apparating out of the room and they disappeared with a little _pop!_ just as Mrs. Shafiq cried _“Crucio!”_

They landed with a painful thump on the sitting room floor. “Are you hurt?” Snape was yelling. “Are you hurt? How do you feel?”

“No, no, no…” Lupin replied. “I’m fine. I’m okay.”

Snape was straddling him, his face wedged between his pale palms. “Do you feel anything? Are you dizzy? Do you have difficulty breathing?”

“What? No.”

“Your tongue – does it feel heavy? Do you find it difficult to speak? Do you feel the need to empty your stomach?”

“I feel the need to shove you off of me.”

Snape got up and paced frantically, pinching the bridge of his large nose. “I don’t understand.” he was muttering. “It should have been in the tea. It _had_ to be in the tea…”

“What?” asked Lupin, propping himself up with his elbows. “Was something supposed to happen that you weren’t able to brief me about?”

 _“You’re supposed to be dying!”_ he screamed with a big hysterical gesture.

“I’m supposed to be _what_ now?!” Lupin tried to get up, but he couldn’t move his legs. A crippling sensation was spreading rapidly upward from his toes. His brow was drenched in a cold sweat. He saw everything around him warp into strange shapes, flattening and stretching simultaneously, and he felt as if his skull was shrinking, squeezing the two hemispheres of his brain together. “Wha… what…” he stammered. He vomited.

“ _Sehh_ … _suhrhuh_ …” he slurred, desperate to catch Snape’s attention. Snape was still pacing up and down and muttering, oblivious to Lupin’s sudden bout of disorientation and paralysis.

_“SUHRHUHH!”_

“Fuck!” Snape dropped to his knees and grabbed him off the floor. He fumbled within his robes and brought out a phial filled with a clear liquid. “Why didn’t you say anything?!” he reprimanded, uncorking the phial. Lupin had no control over most his body, his tongue had turned into a slab of concrete and his arms hung from his body like long bags of gelatin, but he could move his eyes just fine and he scowled at Snape as he poured the liquid into his mouth. It was warm and mutely sour, but it returned the feeling in his limbs and steadied his vision and hearing.

“What did the tea taste like?” Snape asked immediately. “Was it sweet?”

“N-no.” Lupin replied weakly.

“How did it taste?” He asked, Lupin’s face again between his palms.

“It was plain tea, no sugar or cream.”

“Then, where…” Snape paused. Then, “Blue _berry_ muffins. Sweet. That was what you said. _Very sweet_. It was in the pastry!”

“What was in the pastry?” Lupin asked, his words still a little garbled.

“It was in the _pastry_!” Snape cried triumphantly, squeezing Lupin’s cheeks and planting a chaste kiss on his clammy forehead.  “Lupin, you wonderful bastard! Well done!”

“I did _what_ now?”


	8. The Full Moon

The howler was blunt and unanticipated. Alcott Shafiq’s brusque voice shook the tumbledown two-storey house to its roots. “I demand an audience. Respond _at once_.” the crimson paper mouth said clamantly before it ripped itself to shreds.

The backdoor creaked as it was opened and shut. So far, Lupin had made his seventh trip to the outhouse. He had been downing bottle after bottle of a so-called tonic Snape had instructed him to take. It tasted subtly sour and smelled particularly funky. “What’s in this, again?” he had asked after forcing a couple of slurps down his gullet.

“It’s a solution of vinegar and warm water.” Snape had told him, rather offhandedly. “It’ll neutralize the toxins that are running through your bloodstream.”

He stretched and groaned as he scooted into the sitting room. The orange sweater he wore hiked up to expose his pale belly, and he absentmindedly rubbed at it as he watched Snape scrawl a reply on a spare leaf from Lupin’s old notebook. He handed the note to the waiting owl, which lunged forward, took it in its beak, and flew out the open window. “I take it that he wants to see you.” said Lupin conversationally.

“Yes,”

“I don’t think it would be wise to meet him here.” said Lupin cautiously. He shuffled his bare feet for a moment and added, “Of all nights, he just _had_ to pick this one.”

Snape knew all too well why a meeting on that particular night would be inconvenient, not to mention perilous. As part of an impromptu werewolf-safety protocol, he had decided to keep a great amount of distance from Lupin. Whenever the latter would take a step closer, he would take a stealthy step backward. All day the two of them looked as if they were doing a queer rendition of the tango, which involved wide-eyed stares and long defensive pauses in difficult positions. They spoke from opposite ends of the room and resolved to pass each other household objects with a convenient utterance of _wingardium leviosa_ , or instead took matters into their own hands by simply exclaiming _accio_ when the need came. Snape also carried his wand in his hand wherever he went – he even had to clamp it several times between his crooked teeth when he was forced to do a domestic activity that required both hands. As much as possible, he tried not to do anything save from keeping an eye on his housemate. You can never really tell when he’d start _snarling_.

“That’s why I sent him word to meet me at the pub.” Snape told him, getting out of his way to walk around the threadbare armchair and over to the coat rack to collect his battered coat. He only used this coat when he went among the muggles, and it was sheer luck that he was wearing a set of muggle clothes instead of his patronized black frock. “I’ll be back in ten.” he said as he booted his feet. “Maybe fifteen.”          

 Lupin anxiously glanced up at the wall clock, his face sank. He looked haunting in the retreating light. “It’s getting quite late, Severus,” he said querulously. “And you have to put some reinforcements on the trapdoor. I don’t really think it could hold back a fully transformed werewolf.”

“Lupin,” said Snape, irritably. “I gave you my word that I will be back in no less than ten minutes. Don’t make such a fuss. Now, your dinner is on the stove – I’ve taken the liberty to prepare a palatable stew in the hopes that it will dull your thirst for flesh once you turn – don’t bother to clean up the dishes, just sit in the cellar once you’ve finished and I promise to do the rest.”

“But –”

The door was an inch away from the frame, and Snape managed to blurt out, “ _Ten minutes._ ”

It had rained that morning, and Snape hurried across the soupy slush of the cobbled streets. Paddy’s was crowded – as usual. Workmen either huddled together around tables, screaming in glee at a game on the telly, or sat bowed over their drafts at the bar in solemn isolation. The air reeked of cigarette smoke and sweat.

He pushed his way to the bar and ordered a tumbler of beer. He wasn’t much of a drinker, but he knew he’d feel terrible if he stood around in that dingy place doing nothing. You had to be constantly doing something in places like that, so people would leave you to yourself. A man he recognized as one of his father’s boozehound cronies passed him and tried to shoot the bull.

He pointed one calloused, grimy finger at Snape and squinted. “It’s Sev, ain’t it? Am I righ’?”

He nodded, “That’s right.” His smooth baritone voice disgruntled the boozehound, who glared closely at him.

“Ya dun sound righ’,” the boozehound remarked unhappily. He shook his finger right in Snape’s face, in a fashion that almost seemed ominous. “Nun o’ dem lads who be comin’ from where you do sound like tha’.”

Snape forced a smile. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, they don’t.”

“Toby mentioned a school.” said the boozehound – _Merkin_. Merkin was his name, if it was his first or last, Snape couldn’t quite recall. “One o’ dem fancy schools up in whudyacallit? There! Way up north?! Where you be learnin’ manners and shit. Bet they hadda beat ya up into one o’ dem toffs. Is har’ ta get tha’ real Cokeworth blood outta summat like the works o’ us.”

“Nah,” drawled Snape, feeling himself emulate the old boozehound’s speech pattern. “Guess I simply grew out of it.”

Old Merkin blew a large wet raspberry, drunkenly spraying spit over everything before him. “ _Simply_. Pah! Never would ya hear that sorta wordin’ from a _true_ Cokeworth lad!” He staggered forward, spilling scotch from his glass. “Old Toby’d oughta give ya a hauntin’ for bein’ a big ole toff.”

Snape watched the old teetering boozehound amble off before pulling out a crumpled packet of cigarettes from his coat pocket. He took one out and lit it with the tip of his wand (no one had been paying him any attention and he had cleverly hidden it within his sleeve) and wolfed the acrid fumes down to his lungs. He couldn’t remember the last time he smoked. For all he cared, it had been years. His ma hadn’t approved. His da couldn’t care less. Thought of his father made him wince. _It’s this place_ , he thought bitterly, _he always brought me along to mock me in front of his boozer chums_. _Practically everything in here reminds me of him_.

The stench, the liquor, the loud voices, the men hammering their fists on the tabletops – all of it brought him back, and he didn’t want to fully admit it, but he wished he was back at Spinner’s End with Lupin or just somewhere far away from all those people. He dragged at the smoldering cigarette between his fingers and began to blow out smoke rings. He tapped his boot against the floor. He drummed his fingernails on the bar. He drank his beer. He did everything he could to keep his mind from thinking of anything other than the meeting with Alcott Shafiq.

The sun began to sink.

 _Two more minutes_ , he said to himself. _If in two minutes he’s not here, I’m going_.

A beat, then, “You could have hinted that you’d be wearing something else.”

 _Oh Merlin_ , Snape breathed a sigh of relief. _Thank goodness_.

“I must remark that you blend in with this rabble.” Alcott Shafiq said, in a tone that wasn’t friendly at all. Snape rolled his eyes.

“I’m as much a part of them, as they are a part of me.” he retorted. “What do you want?”

Alcott Shafiq looked misplaced in that glum barroom, with his massive body and bright puce colored robes. He earned some judgmental glowers from the patrons, none of which seemed to bother him. “Felicity’s trial is _tomorrow_.” he hissed. “Until now you haven’t mentioned a single word of your investigation’s progress. Have you found anything in her defense _at all_?!”

Snape slid a folded bill under his empty beer tumbler and muttered. _“Oh, poppycock!”_ Pushing drinkers out of his way, he burst through the door, nostrils flaring. Alcott Shafiq hurried after him, calling his name over and over.

“Don’t you turn your back on me!”

He kept walking. He glanced up at the gray sky. He walked faster.

“Professor Snape!”

“I gave you my word!” Snape yelled, his voice reverberating against the walls of the alley. “I gave you my word that I would do what you have asked! _Why_ can’t anybody be satisfied with a single assurance? Tomorrow I will present my case before the Wizengamot. Need you worry about the details?”

It was getting darker, stars were beginning to twinkle behind the shroud of smog above. “Of all nights.” he sneered. “Of all nights, it had to be _this_ particular night. You’ve wasted enough of my time. Go home, Mr. Shafiq. Lest you encounter something you are not capable of outrunning.”

“Professor Snape, I command you to tell me exactly what you’ve found out!” roared Shafiq. The tip of his wand brushed the end of Snape’s nose. His face contorted in disgust like that of an unimpressed critic, Snape turned on his heel and trudged down the cobbled road of Spinner’s End. Shafiq was hot upon his heels, but terror petrified him as he caught sight of what lurked within the tenth house just as his younger companion flung open the door.

It was hunched over, huge – twice the height of a regular man – naked, and the color of obsidian. Its grotesque arms were tucked tightly to its sides, and it fumbled about with its long, clawed fingers. A lengthy neck ended with a rather clumsy oversized head, on top of which sprouted strands of sparse hair. Strings of drool hung down from its snout and a large wet nose busily sniffed at the air. It breathed slowly, almost serenely, but it found the stench of flesh and fear, and spotted the two unlucky men at the door. It watched. It waited. Testing them.

“Mr. Shafiq,” Snape whispered. For the third time in his life, he found himself face to face with the monster of the Shrieking Shack. A sickening feeling swelled inside him, threatening to burst him like a balloon with a pin. “If you value your life, I suggest you run.”

Alcott Shafiq backed away, slowly, never taking his eyes away from the glowing amber orbs that followed him. Once he was out of sight, he broke out in a sprint up the street. Snape was left alone to battle the thing that had been, only minutes ago, Remus Lupin.

It growled as he stepped over the threshold. They circled the room, taking little step by little step, finally switching places. A gust of wind blew through the doorway, and the thing jerked its head around, cast away all thought of the potential prey that stood helplessly before him, and lurched forward into the night, feet and hands pattering against the cobblestone. It crashed through the empty house across the street and ran in the direction of the woods.

 

It wasn’t hard to track down a loose werewolf. This one was moving exceptionally slow.

It kept halting mid-run, screaming and tossing from side to side. It clapped its hands to its head and violently shook itself, as if man and beast were struggling for control. Under the light of the full moon, the man had to give in, but he remained there – trapped behind the coarse pelt.

The man lurched to the left, smashing against the trunk of an old tree, meaning to knock the monstrosity out. _This is my body._ He insisted. _This body is mine to control, to command. My name is Remus John Lupin and I am no animal. I am human._

The beast jerked away, dragging its knuckles across the dirt.

_No._

The man pulled back, clawing up handfuls of soil and pebbles, and sat firmly on the ground.

_No more._

The beast roared, enraged. It forced itself on all fours and pushed on, all the while feeling the man hang back.

Severus Snape was witnessing a battle, reflected only in the werewolf’s shifting eyes. For a second they were a lurid shade of amber. Now, they were gray, unmistakably human.

“Lupin!” he cried.

_No, Severus. Go away. Go away!_

The beast turned its ugly head, rubbery ears prickling up in excitement.

“Lupin,” he was winded. His wand was in his limp hand.

_No! Stay where you are! Don’t come any closer!_

“I know you’re in there.” Snape kept his wand low. “I want to have a word with you.”

_YOU’RE MAD! Keep away from me!_

The beast watched him closely, licking its horrible teeth. In a single pounce, it could pin the wretch to the ground and lay it low.

_Severus, please go. There’s nothing for me now, only this. I can no longer discern friend from foe. My head is clouded with thoughts that don’t belong to me. Please, I can never forgive myself if you die by my own hands. Leave me to my fate and live. Leave now while I can endeavor to keep him at bay! After all, I deserve this. This is my punishment. For all the wrongs I’ve done. Let me suffer. Let me suffer, for that is all a traitor and deserter like me will ever be worthy of._

As if in answer to his despondent musing, he heard Snape say, “It is our choices that determine the kind of people we are, _not_ our pasts, and you are more than _this_. You are a good man, Lupin, a far greater man than most. In fact, I can’t stand to be in the same room with you, because I envy you. I envy you for being so kind, despite everything you’ve gone through. You’re so pleasant even to the people who mistreat you. You don’t deserve the monthly torture, and you don’t deserve to be burdened by your regret and self-disappointment. My mother once told me that we are never given anything we cannot endure. If you can’t see the end to your pain, then I will help you see. And I don’t care if I die in the process. All my life I’ve resolved to give people what they deserve, and I am absolutely certain that you do not deserve any of this. Let me help you. Just this once.”

Snape looked into those ever-shifting eyes, and to his delight he saw that they were human – wide and dripping tears. He stepped closer. “Let me tell you something I wish people had told me a long time ago.” he told him. “You have a choice, Lupin. Do not choose to loathe yourself. Do not let it devour everything that you are – everything good and pleasant.”

The man felt himself surge upward, breaking through the coarse husk of the beast, up to the surface of his very being as his soul seeped through his skin, and when Severus Snape – trembling and frightened out of his wits – rested his free hand on his head, the beast could no longer protest. _This body is mine._ He told it, feeling it cower in the face of his dominance. _I am human._

“Do not make the same mistakes I did _._ ” whispered Snape.

Lupin, trapped still in his lycanthropic form, tenderly licked the long-boned fingers that caressed him. He settled down, curling up at Snape’s feet, and, for the first time in decades, lay in peace in the presence of the full moon, which bathed the unlikely friends in its silvery glow as they sat side by side, their hearts beating in time with each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this came out well. I have absolutely no talent in writing dramatic scenes. XD


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